


Bury Bluejeans

by Desiree_Harding



Series: Stolen Century (Desiree Style) [2]
Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: But that's sort of par the course for the Stolen Century so, Canon Compliant, Canon Era, Character Death, Episode: e060-066 The Stolen Century Parts 1-7, F/M, Mutual Pining, My First Work in This Fandom, Pre-Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-26
Updated: 2018-07-26
Packaged: 2019-06-16 09:43:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,092
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15434283
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Desiree_Harding/pseuds/Desiree_Harding
Summary: Lup finds out that watching your family die never gets any easier, no matter how many times it happens.A Stolen Century Episode I whipped up last night, possibly more forthcoming. Mostly focused on Barry and Lup and the years we didn't see.





	Bury Bluejeans

**Author's Note:**

> I pronounce the word "bury" like Barry's name so if you don't I'm sorry the pun doesn't work for you :(

It’s _such_ a stupid fucking way to go.

It’s so easily avoidable really, both she and Barry are such capable spellcasters, and they’ve done so much work, they’ve learned so much from their years on the Starblaster –

But magic is weird on this plane. By some force they don’t understand, haven’t been able to investigate, the plane of magic, as they called it on their homeworld, seems to be – somehow it seems almost _disconnected_ from this place, and their magic cuts in and out like a faulty signal. The plane is nearly abandoned too, the only sapient life present in fairly primitive hominins that live in rough communities tucked in wild corners, not very friendly, none of them familiar with magic in any way.

For the first time in a long time, Lup can’t rely on her arcane abilities to help her through tough spots, and that’s what gets them.

They went out on a mission down to the surface because Barry had wanted to see if he could get some information on what’s up with the magic plane, and Lup went with him, but they got lost in the woods, and their stones of farspeech haven’t been working, and they’ve been travelling for days and Lup twisted her ankle something nasty a while back and they had to use a heal, and then Barry ate something that Lup could’ve _sworn_ was safe but fucked him up bad and Lup had to heal him and heal him and heal him just to keep him from fucking _dying_ , because they’re going to get out of this, dammit.

But they’re tired, they’re  _so_ tired because neither of them has been able to sleep, Lup hasn’t even meditated, hasn’t even been able to restore her energy at _all_ , and they’re leaning on each other as they walk through the tall, gods, ever-so-tall trees and try to find some way to get back to their friends.

“Lup,” Barry rasps, “look,” and Lup does, because after 33 years, she wouldn’t deny him the world if he asked for it.

The forest ends up ahead, and far off in the distance, across one of the high-grassed fields…

Smoke. And smoke means fire. They see the outlines of the hominins’ primitive homes, and they’ve found someone – they’ve found _people_ , thank the gods – they can get help, they can –

And Lup is just in the middle of that thought when everything goes to hell.

Lup doesn’t see where they come from, they’re just there, and they have knives drawn, and all at once there’s impact, and Lup is nearly knocked to the ground.

She barely has time to think, she’s so tired, she just _reacts,_ twisting around where she fell, something deep in her stirred up from her younger days when she and Taako had to fight their way out of difficult scrapes before they had their magic, before they learned; she goes for pressure points, is able to wrestle the knife out of the hands of her attacker, fend off and disarm two more, and _Barry_ , where’s Barry –

It happens so fast, between one moment and the next, as Lup has a moment of free space around her, three attackers on the ground, and she looks over to Barry – where did he learn to fight like that?

The man behind him comes from nowhere, and Lup has no time to cry out to him before the man buries his knife, right there, right in the small of Barry’s back, and it’s horrible, the noise Barry makes is horrible and makes Lup’s stomach turn, and the man _twists_  his hand –

And then Lup is ablaze.

She almost doesn’t know what happens, just knows that the fire comes out of her from somewhere deep and furious and righteous, and in a few moments, the rest of their attackers are on the ground, immobilized, _dead_.

Barry teeters in the quiet, looking right at her with wide, pained eyes.

Lup catches him, lowers him gently to the ground, she’s saying his name over and over, and she doesn’t know what else to say and then she does, words spilling from her lips over and again as she take’s Barry’s weight –

“Barry, Barry, oh gods, _fuck_ , hold on, wait, I’ll help you, just breathe, Barry, breathe.”

She can tell he’s trying to say something, and she wants to lay him down, but she _can’t_ , not with the knife in him, and Barry, Barry says –

“Lup.” Gods, _fuck_ , he sounds so fucking _serious_ right now – “Lup, we don’t have any spell slots left.”

“What are you talking about?” she snaps, her whole body shaking, “of course we –” but she doesn’t finish because she can feel in her bones that he’s _right_ , she’s exhausted, she can’t even –

“Spare the dying,” she rasps out, and she tries to _cast_ it, but there’s nothing, there’s nothing inside of her, no magic for her to tap into, nothing at all, and Lup doesn’t know if its planar shenanigans again or if she’s reached an exhaustion where even _cantrips_ are beyond her reach, but she doesn’t care because Barry Bluejeans is _dying in her arms_.

“Barry, come on, stay with me,” she says, shaking him a bit because she doesn’t know what to do, and she looks around the clearing for their packs, that maybe their might be something –

Fuck. Their packs are gone, the bandits that got away must have taken them. Fuck fuck fuck _fuck fuck fuck –_

She can take Barry to the village on the plain, she can –

He’s too heavy for her to carry and its _so far_. They’ll never make it.

They’re still in the forest she can still – fuck there’s gotta be a fucking _plant_ or something she can use, there’s gotta be something, there _has to be something –_

Her eyes snap back to his, and they’re falling closer to shut now, and he looks so tired, and hurt, and there’s blood at the corner of his mouth and sweat across his pale skin.

“Take it out,” he rasps, and Lup doesn’t understand for a long moment that he means the knife, and then she _does_  and she shakes her head no, because taking it out means increased blood flow, and it’ll kill him –

“Please,” he says, and Lup can’t handle how much it sounds like he’s begging her to kill him, “please, Lup. It’s easier lying down, please.”

She can’t she can’t she can’t she _can’t,_ but Barry’s looking at her and pleading and she has to she has to, gods she has to for him.

The knife hilt in her hand feels horrible, and she pulls it from him with a sickening sound, tries to bear the horrible animal noise that comes from Barry’s mouth at the pain, and she feels all around the wound, the blood, hot, already soaking his clothes, just darkening his red robe. And the knife drops from her hand, shaking, gods she’s shaking, onto the forest floor, an entirely too gentle release for the violence in front of her.

She lays him down gently on the dirt of the forest, on his back, just like he asked, and now they’re waiting, and the blood is in his mouth and spilling out onto his chin and his cheek, and his eyes are open wide again, and he’s looking at her and Lup can’t say anything – she can’t do anything –

She grabs his hand and feels a faint squeeze back, and she grabs his other one and holds them both in hers and squeezes, squeezes, and she isn’t sure if she’s imagining gratitude in his eyes or if it’s real, doesn’t know which one is worse, and the forest is so quiet around them and Barry’s breaths so heavy, so labored, and his eyes so wide, never ever leaving hers. And she waits, and she waits, holding his hand, fucking _useless_ as Barry _dies_ right in front of her.

It feels like no time and forever until his eyes finally glass over, until he goes limp and his hands lose their grip on hers, and his shallow, shaky breathing finally ceases once and for all, and Barry is gone.

Lup is shaking, shaking head to toe and she doesn’t know what to do –

No. She does. She closes his eyes almost on instinct, and she’s done this before, crew members have died with her before, fuck, she has to – she’s gotta bury him or something, what was it Barry said he wanted done if he were to die?

She has to bury him, but she’s got no shovel, she’s got no magic, she’s got nothing she can do. And her ankle was functional after he healed it but she must have irritated it again because the joint is crying out in pain where her leg is folded underneath her and she doesn’t have the strength to get the body –

Lup leans over toward the forest floor and vomits as the thought of _the body_ crosses her mind, as the smell of blood and charred flesh from the battle around them hits her, she leans over and heaves, and heaves, and heaves, and nothing comes up because _oh right_ , they haven’t eaten in nearly 24 hours and have barely had anything to drink in the meantime. She just sits there, gagging for long moments until her mutinous stomach gives up and she can sit up again.

There’s nothing she can do, she thinks, looking around the ruined impromptu battleground. She can’t bury her friend, but she can’t leave him like this, lying there lonely on the forest floor, not even able to be wrapped in a simple tarp because their _packs_ are gone.

Their packs are _gone_.

Their packs are gone, which means Barry’s notebook with all his research on this planar system is gone too, and Lup doesn’t know how she’ll get it back, or if they’ll ever find the same bandits again even if they try, or that the bandits won’t use the paper for fucking _kindling_ , for all she knows.

Which means the whole expedition was for _nothing_.

She screams, frustration and anger rolling off of her in waves, screams and lets the sound of her furious voice echo off the tall trees and through the expanse of the forest and of the plain so close behind her, screams at the red sky above and the yellowed leaves below and _hates_ it _all_ , because this world killed Barry, and it was for _nothing_.

Eventually her voice is hoarse, and eventually there are no more tears to spend on the frustration and grief for the time being, and Lup has to pull herself together begun the sun is getting low and as easy as it would be, she refuses to fucking let herself _die_ _here_.

Even if the only reason she can come up with not to just lay down and give up here on the forest floor is that it she can’t leave Taako alone for the rest of the cycle.

It’s a good enough reason to get her on her feet.

The best she can do for Barry is to pull his robe off of his body, and the thing is torn and stained with mud and blood, but she covers him up, covers his face, and decides to move on.

She doesn’t know how she’s going to signal the Starblaster to come get her, and she doesn’t want anything to do with the rough humans living out there on the plain, wants nothing to do with the tiny village she and Barry spotted right before everything went to shit, but she’ll be safer there than in the forest at night, so she walks.

She walks, and walks, and walks, and the air on the plain and in the high grass is still and the planet is eerily quiet at night, silent, no animal noises, no insects, next to nothing, and she hates it.

She stumbles into the town just as the last light is fading, and the few villagers outside their homes look on her with horror and it takes everything in Lup not to lash out. But there’s one woman who gives her a once-over, sees the way she favors her left foot and the blood on her face and hands and clothes, and looks once in the direction from which she came, and she beckons her inside.

Lup hasn’t grasped the language of these poor hominins yet, so she and the woman communicate mostly through points and nods and the occasional gentle guiding hand from her host as Lup is given a simple dress to change into, a wet cloth to wipe up the blood and the dirt on her. She burns her clothes while the woman watches, save her IPRE jacket, which she slings loosely around her shoulders. The woman passes her a bowl of some sort of grain and some salted meat and looks grateful for the extra kindling.

The woman lives alone, which seems strange somehow, but the next day Lup walks with her to a small stream nearby that cuts through the field, clear and fast-moving and surprisingly deep, and helps draw water to bring back to the village.

She spends a long time attempting to pantomime what she’s been through to the people there, once they’re willing to stand near enough to her for her to stand any chance at communication. It’s frustrating, and Lup almost walks away more than once, but eventually the woman helps her, says a few words, and three burly men step forward from the small crowd that’s assembled, and the five of them, the three men and Lup and the woman set off toward the forest where she’d been pointing.

They find Barry, his body a day old, and Lup starts crying all over again when she sees that the robe has been disturbed by something, perhaps an animal, and she can’t bear to look at Barry to see if anything’s really gotten to him. The men shake their heads, have a quick conversation that seems disdainful of the dead raiders Lup left on the ground. The woman pulls Lup close, lets her weep, and the men pick up Barry’s body and carry it back to the village across the expansive plain, wrapping him securely in the robe, not so much, Lup thinks, because it’s a part of their custom, but because it seems like they can tell it’s important to her.

That night, the woman and the three men set up a bonfire in the middle of the small collection of houses and they burn Barry’s body. Lup finds that because of the rest she’s gotten, and by the luck of their weird planar system, she’s able to summon a small flame to set the thing ablaze, and she sits and watches for a long time as the smoke curls up into the sky and the fire blazes in front of her. The four hominids stay with her the whole time, and a few others join the vigil. Some of them sing, long low notes spinning out as they let the fire burn on and on, and Lup thinks that if this is their ritual for the dead, it isn’t half bad.

She doesn’t cry again, but there’s a bit of a tightness in her throat that almost feels like she is.

The woman doesn’t seem to mind hosting Lup in her hut, and Lup spends a week in her company as she tries to think of how she can possibly contact the _Starblaster_ and get back to her family aboard the ship. As good as the villagers have been to her, this whole cycle sucks serious ass and Lup _needs_ her brother.

And then she catches a break.

A week after Barry bled out in her grasp, Lup’s sitting outside of the woman’s hut, learning very slowly and very poorly to weave a basket or something (it’s hard to tell with the language barrier) out of the local grasses. She’s had to keep her hands busy, had to keep her mind engaged with something, because if she doesn’t, she can’t help but see Barry’s pained eyes in her head, hear his gasping in her ears, and she _can’t_. So she’s been helping with chores where she’s useful.

Today it’s weaving.

But suddenly there’s shouting and Lup looks up overhead to see the Starblaster approaching at relatively low altitude, and the villagers freaking the _fuck_ out because of it.

Lup doesn’t hesitate, she drops the weaving in her hands and _runs_ away from the woman’s hut, ignoring the shouting behind her, and as soon as she’s clear of the village she casts three enormous fireballs up into the air, and she can _see_ them notice her, can see the ship turn and touch down outside the village and she’s so _relieved_.

Taako comes bounding off the ship, and in an instant Lup’s arms are around him, her face buried in his neck, and Davenport is second, Magnus on his heels and then Lucretia and Merle and _gods_ , she’s _missed_ them.

Lup hugs and hugs Taako, and when she feels Dav’s hand on her lower back she knows she has to pull away.

Davenport is, as always, businesslike, but Lup can see the relief in his eyes at having found her, safe and sound. And under that, the pain, and the fear as he says,

“It’s definitely good to see you Lup, but is Barry with you?”

Her look must say it all, because the captain’s face falls, and he bows his head and lets out a long sigh. And Lup can feel the rest of the crew deflate a bit from where they are, and she thinks of Barry’s body and the ambush and she feel sick and exhausted all over again.

Davenport runs a hand over his face.

“Alright,” he says, pulling himself together. “Take all the time you need before you make your statement to Lucretia. I think we’re going to look around this place for records’ sake, but you can go back to the ship anytime, Lup. We’ll have a wake tonight for Bluejeans.”

“I think you mean _we_ can go back anytime, Cap’nport,” Taako cuts in before Lup has a chance to say anything. “Because Taako’s ‘bout to have some fucking twin time with his sister, capiche?”

Davenport doesn’t argue, just waves them both off with one last, “good to have you back, Lup,” before he turns away and the four remaining crew members walk toward the village, leaving Lup and Taako alone just off the gangplank.

“Come on, Lu,” Taako says, much gentler now, “let’s get this twin thing started.”

“Just a minute,” she says, her eyes drifting back to the village, and she resolves to do something.

She turns and walks back onto the ship, surprising Taako, who jogs to catch up with her, and she doesn’t say anything to him as she goes to her closet, pulls out a clean IPRE  uniform jacket, and promptly walks back off, holding it gingerly as she heads back into the village and to the woman’s hut.

The woman is still weaving, there on the ground, her hands busy but her eyes trained on the commotion of the IPRE members attempting to interact with some of the other hominids. When she approaches, the woman looks up, and Lup can see that her clever hands have already finished her basket, which is set aside at her feet, and she’s pulled Lup’s into her lap, and is carefully fixing up Lup’s messy, uncoordinated weaving, a little bit at a time.

The woman looks at her, and Lup looks back, and after a moment, she holds out the IPRE jacket to the woman, who looks at it quizzically, but does not put out her hand to accept it. They stay there for a moment longer before Lup crouches, slinging it over the woman’s shoulders, and slowly the woman reaches up one hand to touch the sturdy wool of it. Then she looks again at Lup, and after a moment, picks up the finished basket from her feet and holds it out to her with a nod.

Lup almost tears up again as she takes it, and then the woman takes her hand, squeezes it once with a nod, and lets go, and Lup knows her thanks has been received.

She tucks the basket under her arm and leaves the village without a backward glance.

She places it on her little windowsill in her room, and she makes her way to her and Lucretia’s shared bathroom, following the sound of running water, to find that Taako’s nearly finished drawing her a bath, scents of lavender and vanilla escaping into the air with the steam rising from the surface.

She soaks for a long time, and Taako brings her hot chocolate, spiked of course, and it warms her right down to her core. He washes away the dirt and grime from her skin and rubs away the tension in her shoulders, and spends a long time washing her hair.

When she gets out he’s pulled out her silkiest matching pajama set, and he brushes her hair with at least 300 strokes, and braids it intricately, so that if Lup sleeps in it it’ll come out wavy tomorrow morning, just the way she likes it. Lup’s always been shit at hair, and she knows that getting Taako to spend so much time on it like this is a luxury.

She must have scared him real bad with this last one. She and Barry were supposed to be gone for two days, tops.

It’s been almost two weeks.

Taako finished her hair and she climbs up next to him in her bed, snuggling back on the pillows and leaning her head on his shoulder, his arm around her.

“Sorry for scaring you,” she says, because she knows he was, and because she is.

He tenses for a second, before giving her a sort of gentle one-armed hug.

“We’re all good now,” he says, speaking for them both, comforting the both of them.

Lup spills it all to him there, how they got lost, and how they gravely miscalculated how dangerous the surface was, and how Barry died right in front of her. And Taako listens intently, lets her talk it out and cry a little bit, one more time.

“I know he’ll be back in six months,” she says, feeling foolish, “it’s just –”

“Don’t even,” Taako says, almost a scoff but in a way she knows is meant to validate her, “sounds like it fucking _sucked_ , Lulu.”

“And they even took his fucking notes,” she whines, “so we can’t even get anything out of it.”

Taako freezes.

“I’m sorry _what_ was that?” he says, pulling away and letting Lup flop right onto the covers without his body supporting her.

“Come baaack,” she whines, but Taako gets up instead, his weight leaving the bed.

“No can do, sister mine, you just described your crush’s _death_ to me and you’re worried about his _research_ ,” he says, glee evident in his voice and when Lup raises her head to look at him his face looks like someone just made his Candlenights.

“ _Fuck you_ ,” she says emphatically, burying her face back in the comforter.

“ _Fuck_!” Taako shouts gleefully, “you and the nerd really are made for each other!”

Lup blindly lobs a pillow in his direction, hard, and hears him go down. Nice.

“Be careful what you fucking say or we’ll spend the rest of this cycle with five crew members,” she says.

“You won’t,” Taako says, and Lup doesn’t have the energy or heart to dispute him. She can feel him climb back up on the bed, curl himself around her and lay his head next to hers. He’s got gross and sweaty boy smell. Lup loves him.

“Sorry Barry died,” he says after a minute, hugging her tight.

“I’ll be fine,” she says, “it’s just hard to watch that shit happen.”

“Cuz you like him,” Taako prods, literally prods, poking her in the back. And Lup thinks of Barry, the face he gets when he’s all excited about discovering something new, and the iron determination hidden under his soft exterior, and the way that he’s somehow better at hand-to-hand combat than she is, and how he let her lean on him for hours at a time when the walking got her ankle fucked up and he couldn’t heal it anymore.

“Yeah,” she says wetly, “I really fucking do.”

**Author's Note:**

> I haven't posted anything in over a year!  
> This is my first published TAZ fic, so if you liked, leave a kudos or a comment! Or both!  
> I'm on tumblr at [Desiree-Harding](desiree-harding.tumblr.com) so hit me up and let me know what else you'd like to see if you enjoyed the fic!  
> Thanks for the read!


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